


Tea Cakes

by MarigoldVance



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Gen, Not Related, Prompt Fill, WinterFRE2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:34:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22560295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarigoldVance/pseuds/MarigoldVance
Summary: Fíli is somewhere he ought not to be and the strange boy beside him is being no help at all.
Relationships: Fíli & Kíli (Tolkien)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9
Collections: GatheringFiKi - Winter FRE 2020





	Tea Cakes

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt: " _60\. Wonderland AU. They’re not too wild about these chaotic size jumps, but crazy tea parties are surprisingly enjoyable._ "

Fíli was certain he had questions. Important questions. Questions he needed answered _tout suite, if you please_ , because he was somewhere, and that was fine – wonderful, in fact; everyone needed to be somewhere – only, Fíli was quite certain he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

He looked down and examined his white shirt, threaded and buttoned in pale blue, and, ah, there it was again: A little nudge, like a fingertip poking the edge of his mind, reminding him that _yes, you were somewhere before and now you’re here and here is not where you belong_.

At least he knew that now, could confirm it with the evidence provided by his memory which was simply a fantastic one. He wasn’t being immodest; he had been told, by his mother and brother and a handful of adults and children who’d observed him. Fíli was very proud of his memory and trusted that it wouldn’t lie to him (when had it ever before?). Fíli recalled vividly how his mother had fussed over the state of him – which, by the way, was fine! Just fine! – and then had banished him from the garden to the riverbank to keep his little brother, Tíli, company.

Good and well until, after long minutes of watching Tíli skip rocks poorly across the water, things had become dull and drowsy. Fíli can’t mark exactly when the rabbit appeared, dressed smartly in a waistcoat. He followed for something to do, all the while wondering how this rabbit came to have a waistcoat; rabbits didn’t _have_ waistcoats. Or pocket watches, or schedules to keep or places to be. Perhaps it was an unusual breed of rabbit?

Curious and confused, Fíli hurried after it as the world around him turned more and more peculiar. And then Fíli had tumbled, then stood himself back up, then was shrunk too small and grown too tall and shrunk again to paddle in a flood of his own tears. These events were odd; and, odder still, were the strangers he met along the way to wherever he was meant to be going.

Which is how, Fíli took a deep breath, as though he’d been speaking his thoughts aloud, he came to be _here_ , sitting at the head of a neatly dressed table, a teacup placed before every seat, empty except for his and three others. Cakes, stale and fresh, finger sandwiches and all manner of biscuit loaded the table between teapots of various size and extravagance, each filled with a different flavor of tea. 

Fíli had had several cups with so much sugar, his teeth felt sensitive and rotten. He dipped another cookie and managed one more bite before he tucked it on his saucer, hiding the unfinished piece from the eyes of his three tablemates.

“Have you heard the one about the raven?” The first of the three asked, interrupting himself mid-poem (or perhaps that was all there was to it and it was meant to end abruptly) and turning shiny brown eyes on Fíli.

He looked like Fíli by which Fíli meant, he looked like a boy; with two arms for waving and two legs for walking and a face with a nose and two eyes and a pink mouth. His attention made Fíli blush though Fíli couldn’t puzzle out why. Unlike Fíli, who had yellow hair and milk-fair skin, the boy was chestnut-dark and suntouched. A result, most likely, from days spent hosting tea parties outdoors.

“No.” Fíli answered truthfully. He hadn’t heard the one about the raven nor was he keen to. Everything the boy had said so far was queer and riddly and awfully bizarre. Fíli’s head throbbed from attempts to keep up but, when someone wasn’t making _sense_ , that was a difficult task to ask of anyone.

The boy grinned, cheeky and full of enthusiasm. “ _Why_ ,” He began, leaning close to Fíli as though Fíli wouldn’t be able to hear him otherwise. No one else was speaking, the dormouse snoozing in his cup and the hare quiet as he listened to the boy’s nonsense. Fíli didn’t know if the hare understood what the boy rattled on about, not yet having contributed to the conversation. The boy continued, “Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

Absurd! There couldn’t possibly be an answer to that question! A raven was _nothing like_ a writing desk! The boy was being cruel now, playing with Fíli who merely wanted directions to _somewhere else_ but was too polite to demand them outright. He wasn’t rude, he was a gentleman. However, if the boy insisted on being ridiculous, Fíli had a mind to excuse himself and go, find his own way back to where he was supposed to be.

“Pardon me,” Fíli said and pushed his chair away from the table, “I think it’s time I moved on.”

The boy was stricken, mouth flytrap open and eyes round, teacup drifting to its side in trembly fingers and spilling drip-drops on the white tablecloth. “Already?! But why?”

“I need to find my way back and you’ve been no help at all!” Fíli stropped, hands on his hips and face pinched in an uncomely expression. “I don’t have time to waste on gibberish and gobbledygook!”

In reaction, the boy threw his head back and laughed, tinkling. “Oh, don’t you see!” He said, turning his whole body in his chair to face Fíli, fixing the angle of his overlarge, ratty top hat, “You _do_ have time! All the time you could possibly want!” And he removed a whole cuckoo clock from the inside breast pocket of his jacket and set it on the table in front of Fíli.

The hare did something similar, pulled a bracket clock from nowhere and placed it beside the cuckoo clock. Fíli peered at the clock faces and scoffed. He’d had quite enough of this. The hands were stuck at six o’clock and appeared to have no intention of moving.

“They don’t even work!” Fíli said, stepping to the side and away from the table.

The boy snatched Fíli’s wrist and pled, “Please don’t go, it’s been such fun with you here! We don’t often have visitors anymore,” He frowned, eyes searching the air, “Though I can’t say how long it’s been.” He turned his gaze back up to Fíli’s and blinked, “But don’t you see? Time is of no consequence at our table! It goes on forever and not at all!”

If that was an appeal for Fíli to stay, Fíli was untroubled that he’d have to refuse. “I’m sorry, I really must be going.”

The hare thumped one massive foot in disagreement, shaking the contents of the table – waking the dormouse briefly – and looked sour. The boy, Fíli noticed, wasn’t upset the way the hare was, nibbling his lip and fiddling his fingers. His eyes shined brighter from the wetness of tears and Fíli instantly felt guilty about acting so disrespectfully. The tea party must have been important to the boy and only two of his friends were there as well as a stranger who happened upon them on his way to _elsewhere_. 

Fíli sighed, put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and bent forward to apologize properly, “I’m not cross with you,” Fíli swore, “And I’m sorry for being rude. But,” At this, the boy swallowed thickly and glanced up, already wincing as though Fíli would hit him, “I really can’t stay.”

“You said you don’t know which way is which way,” The boy said, the words spouting in a rush, like he was trying to say everything at once, “So how are you to know that this isn’t the way you should be going?”

“I just _know_.” Fíli asserted, removing his hand to smooth the creases from his shirt and trousers.

The boy was the on brink of shaking apart though why was a mystery to Fíli. The boy twisted his hands and scanned around with feverish eyes; his forehead glistened, and his cheeks were blushed. The boy was nervous, that was obvious, and Fíli had no idea what to say to reassure him that his eccentricities couldn’t be helped, and he wasn’t at fault for Fíli’s leave-taking. Fíli just _had to go_. Like rain had to make things wet.

“What if,” The boy started and cleared his throat and started again, “What if I … come with you?”

The hare stomped his foot like a person claps at the end of a play.

“I … ” Fíli paused to consider the boy’s proposal. He decided, “I suppose that’s a fair idea. I am turned around and it would be nice if I wasn’t turned around all by myself.”

The boy’s worry vanished, and he jumped up excitedly, his chair falling to the ground in the haste of his movement. He grabbed both of Fíli’s hands in his and shook them wildly, jerking Fíli’s entire body with his eagerness.

“Oh, yes yes yes, this shall be fantastic!” There remained a thread of uncertainty in the boy’s voice though the boy leapt about and gathered things Fíli didn’t think they’d need, sweeping them into a cinch-tie velvet sack: a few cakes, a whole teapot, saucers and jam.

“Well, if you _are_ coming with me, we must leave now!” Fíli determined and began to march in the direction he figured was the right one. The boy took his shoulder and spun him around, pushing Fíli forward in the opposite direction from where he had been headed. “Oh. Why this way?”

“Because it’s not _that way_.”

And off they went. The hare stayed behind with the sleeping dormouse, slurping tea and clinking the empty cups set before the empty chairs, carrying on the party alone with zeal.

The clocks on the table tick-tocked to life in the wake of Fíli and the boy’s departure, the second hand making its journey around the face until, at last, it was six-oh-one.

**Author's Note:**

> dedicated to DougieVance: i wish i could have stopped the clock for you just to keep you a little longer. you've taught me to move forward despite what lies ahead - good or bad - and not to stay in the fear, no matter how safe it may feel.  
> ❤️❤️❤️  
> 
> 
>   
> i'm obsessed with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. not _i've-read-it-cover-to-cover-a-thousand-times_ obsessed but enough that i couldn't resist indulging in a little Wonderland fun!! the Hatter is - as i suspect for most - a personal favorite XD 
> 
> ALSO  
> 
> 
> if anyone is curious about Tíli, he was inspired by _Mark Ghanimé_. he's featured in something else i'm writing, and kinda just stuck around * _shrug_ *


End file.
